"Let me up, Noel."
He raised his face, so I could see how frightened his eyes were behind his glasses. "You are about to have another animal to call."
"Nathaniel is my animal to call."
"He's your animal for Damian and you, but Richard is your animal with Jean-Claude."
Richard and Haven were circling in the bare area just in front of the far hallway. They feinted with legs and hands, but they weren't fighting. They were getting the measure of each other. Once they had it, the fight would get serious. I didn't want that.
Noel gripped my arms, turned my attention back to him. "Joseph thinks that something about the vampire marks is giving you an animal to call to match each of your beasts."
"That's not possible."
"Everything you do is impossible, Anita. My Rex thinks it is possible. He hopes that if you feed from more than one lion, your power won't bond to any one person."
Travis collapsed to his knees beside us, blocking my view of the grow-
ing fight. He was cradling his arm tight against his chest. The side of his head was bleeding into his brown-gold curls. "But if you do have to bond to a lion, Joseph would prefer that the strongest preternatural power in his territory not bond itself to a lion who would try to take over his pride."
It seemed stupid having this conversation flat on my back with a nearly perfect stranger on top of me, but I couldn't figure out how to sit up without getting rough with Noel, and Haven had been rough enough. "Why did Joseph send you to me?"
Travis shrugged, and winced, his shoulders hunching around his arm. "Our first task is to keep you from bonding with blue-boy over there. Whatever it takes, to stop that from happening."
I looked at them both. "You're kids. You don't want to be bound to my life, to me, forever. You don't want that, you can't want that."
"I'm only five years younger than you," Travis said. "Hell, I'm two years older than Nathaniel."
"But Nathaniel needed me. You got drafted."
Noel pushed himself up on his arms, which meant I was able to get to my gun, not that it would help, but it was still a thought. His lower body was pressed a little closer to my lower body, but for once it wasn't erotic. It wasn't anything. "Our lion group, our pride, works, Anita, it's our home. I felt blue-boy's power, just walking down a hallway. You can feel it now, coming off him in waves." Noel licked his lips. "Joseph is powerful, but I'm not a hundred percent certain he's more powerful than what's behind us."
"Let me sit up, Noel."
Noel glanced at Travis, and the other man gave a small nod, then hunched over his arm again. Noel moved back so I could sit up, but he stayed kneeling between my knees, I think so he was close enough to grab me if I tried to go to Haven, again.
Richard and Haven were fighting now. Fighting with a capital F, if you're not planning to kill each other. It was a kind of fighting that I would never be able to do. Pounding the shit out of each other, and being able to take the damage. It was guy fighting, for the sake of a point, yes. I'd asked for help to move Haven and protect the other men. Haven's fist got past Richard's arms, and Richard staggered back two steps, but hunched his body, so that the blows Haven tried to rain on him hit only shoulders and arms. Richard, on the other hand, landed two solid body blows that doubled Haven over. Richard followed with a fist to his chin, and only Haven throwing himself backward kept the next blow from hitting. Richard didn't give him time to recover. He came at him with a flurry of blinding kicks that put the other
man into a defensive crouch against the far wall. Richard was winning. I realized in that moment that I hadn't thought he would.
Noel touched my face, turned my gaze back to his scared face. "Anita, please don't touch him, not until you've at least tried one of us."
I checked Richard's progress one more time. Haven was against the wall, simply trying to keep the kicks from hitting him, not even trying to fight back now.
I looked at Travis and his wounds. Noel's eyes so scared. The lions' pride worked; they were one of the few wereanimal groups in town that let their people lead nearly ordinary lives. No power struggles, no hiring bodyguards. Joseph's people were people first, animals second. If Haven stayed in town, hooked up to the power that I had through Jean-Claude's marks, would the lions' world go up in flames?
"You don't think Joseph would win the fight?" I asked.
"He is not the fighter that your Ulfric is," Travis said. Travis said it like it was just true, and no big deal. That was the biggest difference between wolf and lion culture; all the big cat shapeshifters seemed to be less about combat, and more about what was best for the group. The wolf culture was much more about strong is right, weak is just dead. Someone had suggested that it was because the werewolf culture passed through the Vikings' culture, more than any other shapeshifter society. Maybe. Real wolves certainly weren't more vicious than lions, or leopards.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Joseph won his fight with Haven."
"Joseph got lucky," Travis said. He motioned at the fight. "He got real lucky."
Richard had the other man in a defensive ball against the wall. Haven had given up fighting back, and was just trying to keep the damage down. Richard did a very Richard thing. He backed up. The fight was over, as far as he was concerned. Since he wasn't going to kill Haven, the fight should have been over. But Haven's day job was mob enforcer; it's a different mentality.
Richard's voice sounded tired, but not strained, "Stay down."
Haven got to his knees, shaking his head. "I can't."
"You can't win," Richard said.
"Doesn't matter," Haven said, "still have to get up."
"Stay down," Richard said.
"No," Haven said, and he used the wall to push to his feet. He fell back to his knees, one hand holding him swaying against the wall.
I said, "Stay down, Haven."
"Can't," was all he said, and he gathered himself for a rush. He came up
off the floor in a blur of speed, still dangerous, for all the damage he'd taken. Richard sidestepped him, let his own momentum send him crashing to the floor.
"This fight is over," Richard said, and he made the mistake. He offered Haven a hand up.
I had time to yell, "No!" I wasn't even sure who I was yelling it at.
Haven kicked out with everything he had left; he tried to dislocate Richard's knee. Richard had time to avoid some of it, but not all of it. His knee collapsed and he went down.
My gun was out and pointed. I got to my feet. If Haven had pushed the attack I'd have shot him, but he didn't. He lay back on the floor as if that last kick had taken all the fight out of him. "The fight is over," I said, just in case.
"Yeah," Haven said, and his voice held pain, "now, it is."
I stared down the barrel of the gun at him, and he didn't even seem to see the gun. He certainly didn't react to it. Most people don't like having guns pointed at them; if he didn't like it, it didn't show. "I'm thinking you need to go back to Chicago."
"Why? Because I hurt your boyfriend?"
"No, because you hurt two people who couldn't fight back. And, the fight was over; you gained nothing from that last kick."
"He's hurt, I gained that."
I shook my head. "That's not how we play here."
He lay on his back, covered in blood, and too tired, or too hurt, to sit up. He was still breathing hard. "Tell me the rules here, and I'll follow them. Ask Augustine—I follow the rules, once you make 'em clear to me."
I called out, without looking away from Haven. "Is that true, Auggie? Does he follow the rules, once he knows them?"
"It's true, but you have to make damn sure that he knows the rules, and the consequences if he breaks them."
That one statement let me know that I should pack his ass home to Chicago, but I couldn't do it. Standing there while he bled, knowing what he'd just done to Richard and the two young werelions, knowing all that, I still wanted to drop down and spill my body over his. Fuck.
I stilled my breath, and sighted the gun in the middle of that face. The eyes had bled back to blue; they looked almost artificial with the blood all around them. I swallowed hard, and let my body go very still. My voice was soft, but strangely carried through the room, as if everyone had gone quiet. "The rules are, you don't harm the weak. I've got no use for bullies. If you get into another fight like tonight, when you know you've lost, you've lost. You don't try for one last bit of damage. That's street fighting, and that's not what we do here."
"You won't shoot me," he said, and he sounded sure of that.
I felt myself smile, and knew it was the smile that creeped me out when I saw it in a mirror. It was a cruel smile, a smile that said Not only would I kill you, but Fd enjoy it.
His eyes went a little uncertain at that smile. Good.
"I will shoot you. I'll kill you, if I have to."
"Do you want to touch me?" he asked, his voice less breathy now.
"Yes," I said, "I want to strip off and roll on top of you like a dog scent-marking." I gave a very small nod. "I feel the call of your power, Haven."
"If you kill me that all goes away."
"Then it goes away. I don't compromise my rules, Haven, not for lust, or power, or love." I was going to have to either shoot him soon, or lower the gun. Important safety tip: if you're going to do the big threatening speech, be in a comfortable shooting stance when you do it. My hands hadn't started to waver, but they would soon. "Ask the men in my life, I don't compromise."
I watched him think about it. Think about coming off the floor and trying me. "Don't, Haven."
"Don't what?" he asked, all innocent, but innocent just didn't work on him.
"Don't try me right now. If you do, I'll pull the trigger."
"Why? I won't hurt you. I'll just try to take the gun away."
"I'll shoot you, because this is our moment of understanding. You will either live by my rules, or you will die by them."
"I don't believe you," he said.
I let all the air out of my body, and the two-handed shooting stance didn't seem hard to maintain at all. I was suddenly focused, and ready. I felt myself sinking away into that white, staticky place, where I killed. I don't know what my eyes look like when I'm like this, but whatever was on my face, Haven saw it. I watched his face change, and stop being sure of itself. Tension ran out of his body, his muscles, and he lay quiet on the floor, and very still, as if he were a little afraid to move suddenly. Good.
"It's my way, or no way," I said, and the words were squeezed out, because I'd let my air go, so I could shoot him.
He licked his lips, and spoke softly, carefully, being sure to move nothing but his mouth. "Your way."
"If I put this gun away, are you going to try to hurt me?"
"No," he said.
"Why not?" I asked, still staring at him down the barrel of the gun.
"You'll kill me."
"You sure of that?"
Some look passed through his eyes—pain, fear, something close to all of
it. "I know that look, the one on your face. I know it, because I have one just like it. You will kill me, and I don't want to kill you. I can't win, so I won't play."
I stared at him a heartbeat longer. I thought about pulling the trigger. One, because I was ready to; two, because I was almost certain he was going to be trouble. But in the end I lowered the gun, and backed away until I was out of reach of him. I backed away, and made certain I didn't give him my back. I didn't offer him a hand up, and neither did anyone else.
38
I WENT TO one knee beside Richard, my gun not pointed at Haven any more, but still out. We just weren't that far away from the fallen werelion. lb say I didn't trust him was an understatement. The awful thing was, even knowing that he was bad news, knowing that he'd tried to cripple Richard just because he wanted him to hurt, knowing all that, part of me still wanted to touch him. Part of me wanted to go over and start licking the blood from his wounds. But the image in my head of me doing it wasn't of me, not human me. The image in my head was of a huge golden lioness licking his wounds. I shook my head hard to clear the image.
I glanced at Richard. He was huddled over his leg, hands over his knee, but not touching it, as if that had hurt. Not good. I put my gaze back to Haven. I didn't want him getting up without my knowing it. If I shot him, I didn't want it to be because he'd startled me, and years of training with a gun took over. No, if I shot him, I wanted it to be on purpose.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
He spoke through gritted teeth. "It's not dislocated, but it hurts."
I called, "Claudia."
She came to stand over us. "We need a doctor." I thought of Travis's arm. "Maybe more than one."
"Dr. Lillian is on her way." Doc Lillian was a wererat, and the local shapeshifters' most popular doctor for emergencies we didn't want anyone else to know about.
"Good." I fought the urge to look at her, and kept my gaze on Haven. He didn't seem to want to do anything but lie there and bleed, but I wanted to be sure of him. Sure meant looking at him. "Could you guys earn your pay, and actually secure him?" I didn't try to keep the irritation out of my voice.
"Yes, ma'am," she said. She motioned and Lisandro, Ixion, and Graham came up to stand around the fallen werelion. Haven didn't seem to notice. Had he passed out? Not my most immediate problem. I got to holster my
gun without firing it, a rarity for me. I touched Richard's face. "The doc's on the way."
He just nodded, face pinched and pale with pain.
I looked up at Claudia. "Where the hell were you guys while Haven was abusing Travis and Noel?"
"If I say 'right over there,' will you get pissed?"
I stood up. "Yes."
She gave me empty cop face, though I knew she'd never been a cop. "This was a dominance challenge. We are not allowed to interfere in challenges of other animal groups."
"This wasn't a challgene for leadership of anything," I said.
Claudia gave me a look that said, clearly, I'd missed something. Whatever showed on my face finally let her know that I didn't know what the hell she was hinting at.
She sighed. "Sometimes I forget that you miss the obvious."
"What did I miss?" I asked.
"Your Ulfric has established himself as dominant to this guy." She smiled down at Richard. "Truthfully, I didn't think the Ulfric had it in him." There was a grudging compliment in her voice. "You needed for someone to establish dominance over him, if you planned to keep him." She jerked a thumb in Haven's direction. "Guys like this have to be forced to obey the hierarchy."
"You mean the hierarchy of the werelions?"
She shook her head. "Anita, if you add this guy to your men, then someone had to beat the shit out of him, at least once, so he'd know who was boss."
"I'm boss," I said.
She smiled at me. "I like you, Anita. I respect you. I take orders from you. But a guy like Haven is going to see you as a girl, a piece of ass. Unless you can personally beat him to a pulp, he's not going to behave for you. He'll tell you to your face what you want to hear, but you've got Nathaniel, Micah, Damian. I mean you have a lot of non-coms around you. You don't want to bring home a lion to play with your kittens unless you have a big dog to balance it out."
I frowned at her. "Are you saying that Richard is my big dog?"
"Maybe it's a bad example, but it's the best I've got."
"You don't think he would respect me—Haven, I mean?"
She shook her head. "He's got trouble written all over him, Anita."
"You think I should throw him back?"
Her dark eyes widened, surprised. "Does my opinion count?"
"I trust your judgment, and you're the only girl here."
"Why do you need a girl opinion?" she asked.
"Because I'm tired of all the damn testosterone."
She grinned at me. "I'm not sure I'll say anything that the men won't say on this one, Anita. Est
rogen doesn't make me stupid, and you'd have to be stupid to want to keep Cookie Monster over there. I mean he could be a bodyguard, if we made the rules clear, but to take home as a lover, no way."
I nodded. "I agree."
"Then why ask?"
I hugged myself. "Because, knowing all of it, I still want to touch him."
She shrugged all that muscled upper body. "Then you're fucked."
Richard's voice came strained. "You can't want to keep him, not now, not after this."
I knelt beside him. He grabbed my hand, so hard and sudden it startled me. "I don't want to keep him."
I watched him try to think past the pain. "But," he said.
"But it's not always about what I want."
His hand convulsed around mine, until I had to fight not to cry out. "Shift, Richard, you can heal this if you shift."
He shook his head. "If I shift I'll have to spend at least four hours in animal form. Can't go to the ballet as a wolf."
"You're not going to enjoy the evening like this."
His grip on my hand loosened, just holding me for a moment. He stared into my face like he was trying to memorize it. "Do you want me not to go?"
I frowned at him. "Why would you ask that? Of course, I want you to go."
He almost smiled, but winced instead. "You've got a lot of men to juggle, maybe one less would make tonight easier."
I drew his hand against my breasts, and touched his face. "You didn't just assume I needed help to handle Haven. You asked me first, and waited for me to answer. I know you wanted to wade in and pull him off us. Thank you for asking, for waiting."
He grimaced, and tried to make it a smile. "I'm glad you're happy about it, but my waiting cost Travis a broken arm. Joseph's not going to want us to borrow his lions, if we keep breaking them."
That made me smile. "Good point, but the lioness in me is looking for someone strong." I looked at the wall, because I could feel that beast moving around inside me, as if it were pacing the cage of my body. I did not want another round of almost-shifting. I raised Richard's hand to my face. I sniffed it, and it didn't help. Yes, it was Richard, but he'd touched Haven, and the smell of lion was on his skin, along with wolf. The prickling warmth started to swell inside me.
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